PC World advertised sale price not available.

PC World have been advertising Paintshop Pro 9 at half price (£49.99 instead of £99.99).My local store say they must have sold out and the web store is also out of stock. Hard to believe they wouldn't stock up for a genuine offer?

i have been let down 3 times by pc world on their so called sale offers i have yet to purchase a sale item it allways seems to be sold out i think its just used to get you into the store and they maybe have to of the sale item in stock to cover themself's

To be frank. I also believe there is much more to this marketing ploy exploited by PCW. To give an example, they were advertising the Netgear DG824G wireless modem router at half price available on 26 and 27 December. There were none on the shelves at the local store either day (take Gandalf's point about early bird etc) and staff said they were out of stock. Amazingly, the shelves were stacked high with them at full price on the morning of 28 December! Maybe they had a delivery overnight but you can understand how cynical I for one am!

Al94 - taking your point about the Netgear - I went into PCWorld on 26th specifically to get this at £45. They had plenty any there, but all marked as £89.99. see thread click here

but my bit reads "Saw and advert in the paper on Friday for PCW sale starting today - Netgear Wireless ADSL Firewall Router for £44.95 - half price. Went along today, still priced at full price - - I enquired as to correct price abd they said that that was the correct price ! This item was not on their 'flyer' but I explained the ad I saw in the paper and they insisted on seeing the paper !! This guy suggested taking one to the till to see if it rang up as half price - - - as not many at checkout at that time, I did. It scanned in as £89.99 - I again explained what I had seen ib the paper and after a bit of 'umming and ahing' it did come up as half-price. Fortunately for the guy in front of me who had just bought a similar item from Belkin at £79, he heard all this, rushed back into to exchange his Belkin for a Netgear

Slightly off topic, but, I went into our local PCW store last summer, looking for a 'sale' 8x multiformat DVD writer. Yep, sold out - but, passing the 'component centre' on the way out, there was one with a 'last one!' sticker on - 'was £49.99, save £19.99, now £30'. eagerly gathered it up not believing my luck as at the time it was a bargain at £50. Went to the till - it scanned at the 'save' figure of £19.99! Could'nt get out of the shop quickly enough.

Whilst you're right to a fair degree wee eddie, I understand that if a limited number of items are offered at a sale prive, this should be clearly stated. Here are some actual quotes drom DTI Code of Practice for Traders

Part 2: Actual price to consumer

2.1 Indicating two different prices2.1.1 The Consumer Protection Act makes it an offence to indicate a price for goods or services which is lower than the one that actually applies, for example, showing one price in an advertisement, window display, shelf marking or on the item itself, and then charging a higher price at the point of sale or checkout.

Limited availability of product2.2.2 Where the price you are quoting for products only applies to a limited number of, say, orders, sizes or colours, you should make this clear in your price indication (eg "available in other colours or sizes at additional cost").